When the Bread and Butter Pickles are gone, save that juice with all the good spices in it. When you have leftover vegetables from supper, put them in the pickle juice and keep them refrigerated. The cold "pickled" vegetables will be good in a green salad.

You can also peel hard boiled eggs, let them cool, and put them in the pickle juice. These are also good when chopped up in a salad. The eggs will last for several weeks in the juice.

I always mark the date on the jar and allow it to set in the refrigerator at least a month before diving in. I use masking tape because it comes off very easy but won't slide off when the jar and tape get moist in the refrigerator. That way, I can use the jar again and again, just marking it with a different date as needed. Write with a Sharpie so it won't smear when the ink gets wet.

I've got a jar of okra in the fridge right now that I pickled this way. Try things like yellow squash, zucchini, baby carrots or carrot slices. I've got some pickled garlic in the fridge, too, that I canned last summer. Bet mushrooms would be good, too. Green beans, jalapenos, . . .

I always slice the bigger cukes and okra (and now all the other stuff Phyllis has got me thinking about ). The larger the veggie, the longer it'll take for the pickling juices to do their thing.

My brother has some strange daughters. They pour their pickle juice into popsicle molds and make pickle popsicles! Yucky!!

HA! I don't have any near-empty pickle jars, but i do have a fresh cucumber i would like to try preserving. I just posted a wanted item on my local craigslist about pickle juice. We will see what i get.

Does that sort of 'pickle' the veggies, or just add some taste and help preserve the veggies?

It seems to do both. When adding leftover veggies, make sure you drain them well so as not to dilute the pickle juice. As for the boiled eggs, it makes them last so much longer. I have kept eggs in pickle juice for up to 3 months and they still taste good when chopped up and added to salads. They get quite firm, but taste good.

Any vegetable, fresh or cooked, I think would be ok to add to the pickle juice. I prefer the juice of the bread and butter pickles because the flavor of the spices is so wonderful. I eat B&B pickles just as a snack quite often, so I always have enough pickle juice to have something pickled in the fridge.